1937 - State of Play
Responses
Adam - well, keep in mind that the most mechanized army in the world won't stand up to what is the Asian equivalent of the maginot line. And you're right - the NRA isn't fully mechanized. Also the IJA aint involved yet...officialy...
demonkangaroo - Friend. or foe
Thanks for the link...
tjvuse - The Soviet Union is officially friendly with China...For now.
Hendryk - Thanks. Yeah - I've just been reading a lot of books about China and it's headhurting the number of different ways people have translated Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Kaishek, Tchaing - K'ai-shek, Jiang Jieshi...etc etc...
Nivek - Well one can hope that with the slaughter and bloodshet of the Second Great War people will mean it when they say "Never Again"....
1930sman - I too would like to see good maps - unfortunately I am bereft of good China maps... I'll try and include one in the coming update.
TimelineExplorer - It does...
Fenrir_Angerboda - Maybe in the next planned TL "Chiang Kai-shek goes to Lithuania" featuring a restored Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
Vince - Don't worry - I'll do one instead about a Chinese submarine captain operating off Japan's most northern coast and have him complain about...frostbite.
Wyragen-TXRG4P - You're assuming of course that China pwns these countries.... The Second Great War won't be easy for China.
arrowiv - Well you're assuming that the American Public or even political establishment take sides in the Entete vs Axis war. Isolationist sentiments will remain even stronger in this TL with both sides featuring democracies and dictatorships.
TimelineExplorer - JoeMcCarthy ultra liberal senator
Nivek - Not the peanut farmer...
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1937 - State of Play
Why was it that the National Revolutionary Army's most elite elements were unable to make even the smalest of headway against what Chiang dismissed before the war as "bandit rabble." In order to understand this connondrum we must examine both the states of both Kuomintang China and the Manchurian Empire...
China - Deluded Peace
The first crucial factor for the Kuomintang was that China was technically not in a state of war. This meant that the Army was at peacetime activity and that the economy was functioning at peacetime levels. There was honestly a belief that the Manchurian Empire would collapse and that all the NRA needed to do was provide a police force to keep the peace in Manchuria. The events that transpired would reveal this belief to be - tragically flawed at best...
The peacetime posture of China also had effects down the line. Because China was at "peace" and the economy was at peacetime function - constitutionally Chiang's government did not possess the capability to effectively mobilize the Army or create efficient supply lines. The Government could not commandeer property, it could not implement mobilization orders, it could not streamline the function and work of an Army. The most obvious example was that the Beiping-Nanking railway line and highways still teemed with civilian traffic - severely disrupting the flow of supplies...
Obviously this had the deleterious flow-on effect of reduced effectiveness of the NRA as their forces were undersupplied for the task at hand. The "undeclared war" also meant that the Maritime Forces and the Battleships could not utilize their powerful guns to level the Yan Xishan line due to Japan insisting that it would not tolerate further 'violations' of the Treaty of Beijing...
Chiang was caught in a bind. He had accumulated diplomatic prestige by refusing to acknowledge that it was a "war." He could not back down without China losing serious face. On the otherhand he was constitutionally bound to fight with 'both hands tied' - as he put in his diary.
_________________________________________________
Manchuria, on the other hand was a nation fully prepared and ready for the task of fighting a war. Manchuria had covert aid from Britain and France and open aid from Japan in her bid to defend herself from what many saw was an 'inevitable war...'
Zhang had invested heavily into the military and kept up a heightened state of moblization at all times with an intense training schedule consisting of live-fire military exercises. Japanese troops were often invited to take part in these events. At the staff level, coordination between Japan and Manchuria was excellent with plans being laid out that covered every detail ranging from ammunition ammounts to prophylactic sizes...
A section of the Yan Xishan line. They were often built to use the natural terrain to the defenders advantage.
...The most visible and powerful sign of the strenght of the Manchurian Imperial Army would undoubtedly be the Yan Xishan line. Built with much help from Franco-British Engineers - the line would prove it's worth in the early months of the Northern Expedition. The Yan Xishan line contained tons and tons of reinforced concrete with large artillery casements and machine gun positions poised to annihilate even modern armies....
...But it was not just in the materiel and the manpower that Manchuria was ready in. Manchurians had also feed fanatically indoctrinated to believe that the Kuomintang's intentions for Manchuria was to murder, pillage and rape. This meant that Manchus - at least in the early days of the war, would frequently fight fanatically and with zeal...
...After having examined China's manifest unprepardness and weakness contrasted with Manchuria's almost fanatical readiness to start the war. It should not be surprizing why the first few months of the Northern Expedition would go so badly for China... Little did China know that things were going to get a whole lot worse...
Adam - well, keep in mind that the most mechanized army in the world won't stand up to what is the Asian equivalent of the maginot line. And you're right - the NRA isn't fully mechanized. Also the IJA aint involved yet...officialy...
demonkangaroo - Friend. or foe
Thanks for the link...tjvuse - The Soviet Union is officially friendly with China...For now.
Hendryk - Thanks. Yeah - I've just been reading a lot of books about China and it's headhurting the number of different ways people have translated Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Kaishek, Tchaing - K'ai-shek, Jiang Jieshi...etc etc...
Nivek - Well one can hope that with the slaughter and bloodshet of the Second Great War people will mean it when they say "Never Again"....
1930sman - I too would like to see good maps - unfortunately I am bereft of good China maps... I'll try and include one in the coming update.
TimelineExplorer - It does...
Fenrir_Angerboda - Maybe in the next planned TL "Chiang Kai-shek goes to Lithuania" featuring a restored Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
Vince - Don't worry - I'll do one instead about a Chinese submarine captain operating off Japan's most northern coast and have him complain about...frostbite.
Wyragen-TXRG4P - You're assuming of course that China pwns these countries...
. The Second Great War won't be easy for China.arrowiv - Well you're assuming that the American Public or even political establishment take sides in the Entete vs Axis war. Isolationist sentiments will remain even stronger in this TL with both sides featuring democracies and dictatorships.
TimelineExplorer - JoeMcCarthy ultra liberal senator
Nivek - Not the peanut farmer...
__________________________________________________________
1937 - State of Play
Why was it that the National Revolutionary Army's most elite elements were unable to make even the smalest of headway against what Chiang dismissed before the war as "bandit rabble." In order to understand this connondrum we must examine both the states of both Kuomintang China and the Manchurian Empire...
China - Deluded Peace
The first crucial factor for the Kuomintang was that China was technically not in a state of war. This meant that the Army was at peacetime activity and that the economy was functioning at peacetime levels. There was honestly a belief that the Manchurian Empire would collapse and that all the NRA needed to do was provide a police force to keep the peace in Manchuria. The events that transpired would reveal this belief to be - tragically flawed at best...
The peacetime posture of China also had effects down the line. Because China was at "peace" and the economy was at peacetime function - constitutionally Chiang's government did not possess the capability to effectively mobilize the Army or create efficient supply lines. The Government could not commandeer property, it could not implement mobilization orders, it could not streamline the function and work of an Army. The most obvious example was that the Beiping-Nanking railway line and highways still teemed with civilian traffic - severely disrupting the flow of supplies...
Obviously this had the deleterious flow-on effect of reduced effectiveness of the NRA as their forces were undersupplied for the task at hand. The "undeclared war" also meant that the Maritime Forces and the Battleships could not utilize their powerful guns to level the Yan Xishan line due to Japan insisting that it would not tolerate further 'violations' of the Treaty of Beijing...
Chiang was caught in a bind. He had accumulated diplomatic prestige by refusing to acknowledge that it was a "war." He could not back down without China losing serious face. On the otherhand he was constitutionally bound to fight with 'both hands tied' - as he put in his diary.
_________________________________________________
Manchuria, on the other hand was a nation fully prepared and ready for the task of fighting a war. Manchuria had covert aid from Britain and France and open aid from Japan in her bid to defend herself from what many saw was an 'inevitable war...'
Zhang had invested heavily into the military and kept up a heightened state of moblization at all times with an intense training schedule consisting of live-fire military exercises. Japanese troops were often invited to take part in these events. At the staff level, coordination between Japan and Manchuria was excellent with plans being laid out that covered every detail ranging from ammunition ammounts to prophylactic sizes...
A section of the Yan Xishan line. They were often built to use the natural terrain to the defenders advantage.
...The most visible and powerful sign of the strenght of the Manchurian Imperial Army would undoubtedly be the Yan Xishan line. Built with much help from Franco-British Engineers - the line would prove it's worth in the early months of the Northern Expedition. The Yan Xishan line contained tons and tons of reinforced concrete with large artillery casements and machine gun positions poised to annihilate even modern armies....
...But it was not just in the materiel and the manpower that Manchuria was ready in. Manchurians had also feed fanatically indoctrinated to believe that the Kuomintang's intentions for Manchuria was to murder, pillage and rape. This meant that Manchus - at least in the early days of the war, would frequently fight fanatically and with zeal...
...After having examined China's manifest unprepardness and weakness contrasted with Manchuria's almost fanatical readiness to start the war. It should not be surprizing why the first few months of the Northern Expedition would go so badly for China... Little did China know that things were going to get a whole lot worse...
